And some communities that have had mostly single-family homes are changing zoning laws to allow for big apartment buildings.

Amy Walgamott lives in a house in a Shoreline neighborhood that was just re-zoned to allow for bigger buildings. The Shoreline Light Rail station will eventually open right across the street from her house, in 2023.

Walgamott is organizing her neighbors to sell their homes as a unit, to an apartment developer.

“We don’t want to be surrounded by 70-foot buildings; so we have to sell,” she said. (Seventy feet is roughly seven floors.)

But she’s hoping to make the best of a bummer situation: Get enough money for their property so they can move wherever they want.

And there is one silver lining: “Selling as a group, they’re not going to save the house,” she said. “I can take whatever I want – the flooring; my neighbor likes the doors. We could salvage more than we could if someone were going to use the house.”

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